Sluggish Growth Expected For San Diego Economy

The UCLA Anderson forecast says San Diego's economy is poised to do better next year, but the rate of growth will probably be small.

SAN DIEGO  The UCLA Anderson forecast says San Diego's economy is poised to do better next year, but the rate of growth will probably be small.

The report says jobs and housing will play a major part in how San Diego's economy performs next year. The region will add jobs, but not enough to bring the unemployment rate down. A weak job market will discourage new buyers from entering the housing market and sales of bank owned properties will keep prices low. Even so, the UCLA Anderson Forecast predicted the San Diego economy will grow in 2012.

"Drivers of growth in San Diego County are the drivers of growth in all of the U.S.," said Jerry Nickelsburg, UCLA Anderson Forecast senior economist. "Which is technology, it's providing the goods and knowledge to manufacture on the world stage and to provide services on the world stage," he said.

Economic growth will be sluggish until next summer, said Nickelsburg, when the Forecast predicts better times ahead.

The report says San Diego's unemployment rate is hovering just under 10 percent. Governments continue to shed workers and the construction industry hasn't recovered from the housing crash, but there have been gains in the leisure and hospitality sectors.

The report says job growth will take time.

"Next summer we've got job growth picking up to like 2 percent. and that's going to bring unemployment down another percentage point or so, in the summer 12 summer 13 range," said Ryan Ratcliff, an economist at University of San Diego.

San Diego lost more than 100,000 jobs when the economy crashed in 2008; only about 27,000 jobs have been recovered since then.